


Snowed In

by tollofthebells



Series: Emilia Cousland [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Pre-Relationship, Satinalia, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 11:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tollofthebells/pseuds/tollofthebells
Summary: Alistair, Emilia, forgetfulness, Satinalia, and a snowstorm. What could possibly go wrong?





	Snowed In

“We have to go back.”

Emilia turns around sharply to face Alistair—so sharply, in fact, that she startles him, and he nearly falls backward into Morrigan, who nearly falls backward into Fletcher, who most certainly would have given her a bit more than a growl of warning had Alistair actually created such a chain reaction.

“‘Go back?’” Emilia repeats, and he nods insistently. “As in, ‘go back’ to village we stayed in last night?” He nods again. “The one we left four hours ago?” A third nod, and she’s speechless now. There’s a chill in the air, and the morning had been quiet. Snow is coming—before nightfall, if Emilia could guess.

“For _what_?” demands Wynne, _bless her,_ the mage is never at a loss for words.

“I forgot something,” he says simply. Wynne frowns, and Morrigan rolls her eyes so hard Emilia worries she might lose them to the back of her head. She can only continue to gape at him.

“Forgot _what_?” Wynne asks with a warning tone, and Emilia gets the slightest feeling that she’s missing something.

“Just _something_ ,” Alistair insists. “We have to go back.”

Wynne crosses her arms. “Alistair, if this is about—”

“It’s _not_!”

“—then I could just—”

“I need to go back for it.”

“Alistair…” Emilia warns, exasperated but at last finding her voice.

“It’s _important_.”

She wants to say no. _Absolutely not_. Nothing is more important than their task on hand and unless he left his ability to slay darkspawn behind, there’s positively no reason for them to turn around. But when she looks back at him—pleading brown eyes meeting hers, the way the corners of his mouth twitch up _just_ a little—she can’t. If it were the other way around—not that _she’d_ ever leave something behind—but if it were her, he’d go back. He _would_.

“Well,” she says slowly; she’s _never_ so indecisive and she knows Wynne and Morrigan are growing impatient, “perhaps we can—”

But Morrigan cuts her off, ever adverse to _anything_ Alistair wants. “I, for one, will not be going,” she says simply, and Alistair sticks his tongue out at her. “It is ridiculous. There will be inches— _feet_ —of snow in a few hours’ time. We should be moving forward, not backward.”

Alistair pouts. “Well no one wanted _you_ to come anyway,” he mutters under his breath, but Emilia steps between them.

“Morrigan is right,” she says, raising a finger at Alistair as soon as he opens his mouth to object. “It would slow us down if we _all_ went.” Morrigan smiles smugly. “Alistair,” she continues, nodding to him, “you and I will go. Morrigan and Wynne, you can continue forward and scout out a place to camp. We’ll catch up with you eventually, even if we have to lose a few hours of sleep tonight.”

Wynne clicks her tongue at that, frowning. “‘Tonight?’” she repeats. “That’s unlikely, Emilia. That snow will slow you down.”

Emilia nods, _I know_. _But it’s important to him._

Wynne sighs, resigned. “Go, then,” she says, and Morrigan rolls her eyes, “but if you’re foolish enough to walk back to that village _now_ , _this_ late in the afternoon with the storm _this_ close, then don’t expect me to come dig you two out of the snow when it’s all over.” Alistair shifts on his feet. Emilia only bites her lip. “Well,” Wynne adds after a long pause, “at least take the dog with you.”

Emilia nods, offers her a grateful smile, and grabs Alistair by the elbow. “Let’s go,” she says, whistling for Fletcher, who whines but trots alongside them anyway.

“She meant ‘mabari,’” she mutters to him.

He barks appreciatively.

* * *

“That’s it?” Emilia asks when the barkeep at the little tavern they’d stopped in the night before hands Alistair a light and unassuming burlap sack. The snow began shortly after they’d parted from Wynne and Morrigan, and they’d walked for _hours_ after that. Her cheeks are red from the cold and she can’t quite feel her nose anymore. Her braids are wet, dripping bits of yet-to-thaw snowflakes onto the old wooden floor, and her feet are numb and soaked through. She’s cold. She’s tired. _But thank the Maker,_ she thinks, trying not to be bitter but she just can’t help it. _At least we have Alistair’s bag of whatever now._

He offers her a small smile in return. “It’s important,” he says again, just as he did hours before, and she nods tiredly, whistling to Fletcher, who’d already curled up and fallen asleep before the big fireplace in the center of the tavern in the time it took for Alistair to retrieve his package.

“Let’s go,” she says quietly, rubbing her eyes and making for the door, bracing herself for the cold. “We have a long way to go before we make it back to Wynne and Morrigan and in this kind of snow, we…” She turns around to find that neither Alistair nor Fletcher are with her.

“...sure you don’t have two bedrooms available?”

Her eyes snap back to the bar, where Alistair stands amicably, motioning with his hands as he speaks. _Oh no_.

“You see,” Alistair continues, oblivious to her as she storms across the tavern floor toward him, “we’ve traveled a very long way to get here, and it’s snowing, and—”

“Tomorrow is Satinalia,” the barkeep says dully, hardly taking notice of Emilia as she comes to a stop, arms crossed, behind Alistair. “You’re lucky we even have _one_ room available.”

She frowns. _We need to be_ going, she thinks.

“Well,” Alistair says, “if that’s all you have, let me ask her.” He turns around to meet her nose to nose, and he _beams_. “Oh! And there you are!”

She doesn’t return his grin. “Alistair,” she says, quietly, but her stony tone isn’t lost on him, “we don’t have _money_ for a room!”

“I have money!” he insists, pulling a small coin purse from his pocket. “I sold that really nice sword we found in the Circle Tower, remember? It went for a lot! And—look, it’s okay, I can afford it, as long as you don’t mind shar—”

“Alistair,” she warns.

“But,” he starts, and her heart seems to melt along with the snow in her hair when he looks at her _that way_ , “but Emilia, it’s _cold_ out. You’ll be cold if we go back now.”

She can think of a hundred reasons why that hardly matters. _It’s always cold when we travel these days_ or _it’ll be just as cold tomorrow morning_ or simply that _it doesn’t matter if I’m cold_ but that’s when his words pull at her heartstrings; it wasn’t _we’ll be cold if we go back now_ , it was _you’ll be cold if we go back now._

_He never puts himself first._

“One room is fine,” she says to the barkeep, pulling her pack off her shoulders to fish around for her own coin. Alistair is too quick, though, and the money is on the table before she even finds her purse.

“I don’t mind—”

“It’s my fault we had to go back,” he interrupts her, taking the room key slid to him across the bartop. “You can pay the next time _you_ lose something and make us backtrack hours to get it.” That earns him a small smile; they both know Emilia’s never misplaced or forgotten so much as a hairpin in her entire life.

“Up the stairs and to the left,” the barkeep grunts at them, apparently having had enough of their conversation.

The room they’re given is small. The draft is noticeable as soon as they step inside, and Fletcher whines. “Don’t complain,” Emilia snaps, dropping her pack to the floor. “You can go sleep outside if you’re going to be like that.” She’s answered with a defeated bark. Rolling her eyes, she returns to her pack. “Alistair, the fire,” she instructs, untying her bedroll and stuffing it into the corners of the windowsill.

“Aye-aye, captain,” he replies, and even with her back turned, she knows from experience that he accompanies his words with a salute.

 _You’re a born leader, Emilia_ , he’d told her, weeks ago when they’d first arrived in Redcliffe village. _It should be someone like you in line for the throne. Not someone like me_. She’d laughed at that then, shaken her head, but it didn’t stop him from teasing her every time she got in “command mode,” as he liked to call it.

By the time a barmaid arrives with two bowls of stew and a pitcher of warm water in hand, he’s got a good fire going in their little hearth, and Emilia’s done her best to tend to the drafty windows. It’s late, and they eat in silence, mostly, a bite here and there as one turns their back politely so the other can change into dry clothes, another mouthful or two once they’ve set their wet boots and clothes to dry by the fire. She doesn’t get full on the stew—nothing seems to fill her since her Joining, really—but when she nears the end of her bowl, she offers the last portion to Fletcher.

“Don’t,” she says to Alistair when he moves to do the same. “He had some jerky on the road earlier, he’s fine, and besides, you should have a full meal.”

“So should you,” he points out, but she dismisses him with a half shrug, pouring a steady stream of water into the washbasin on their little chest of drawers.

“You should get ready for bed,” she says, pulling her hair from the neat low braids she’d worn earlier in the day. Normally, she slept in her braids, but a rare night in a bed and not on the ground afforded her the luxury of taking the time to brush her hair out slowly, carefully, like her mother used to. Once she’s finished, and after splashing her face with a bit of water, she turns around—only to find that Alistair has hardly moved at all.

“What are you doing?” she asks him slowly. He’s still sitting by the fire where he’d had dinner. The only differences were that that now, his bedroll was on the floor under him, and he’d changed into sleep clothes.

“Me?” he asks, blushing a little. “Ah, nothing. I wasn’t watching you or anything. I mean, well, I was, but only because you were doing your hair and I was just wondering how those little twirlies work, you know…” He gestures to his own head, spinning his finger in little spirals to indicate braids.

 _He was watching me brush my hair,_ she thinks, trying to suppress her own blush rising to her cheeks. “No, I mean,” she says, instinctively pushing her now loose hair behind her ear. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“Oh!!” he says. “Oh, that. Um.” He points to the bed.

The _bed._

The one and only.

She hadn’t noticed when they’d come in. She’d been too preoccupied with the windows and then their dinner and then her _hair_ and yet she still cursed herself for being unusually unobservant. She looks first to the bed, then to Alistair, then to the bed again, then back.

“You take it,” they both say simultaneously.

“No, you,” they say, in sync again.

“You didn’t even let me help pay for the room,” Emilia points out. “You take it.”

“We’re here because I was stupid and forgot something,” Alistair insists. “ _You_ take it.”

They stand across from each other on either side of the bed, Alistair in front of the fireplace, one hand on his hip, and Emilia in front of the drawers, arms crossed. Fletcher whines.

“Why don’t we throw for it?” Emilia suggests, kneeling down and pulling her daggers from where she’d neatly tucked them into her pack. She gestures to one of the wooden posts in the wall. “Then whoever wins can pick who gets the bed.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alistair pouts, “that’s a _great_ idea, a really _fair_ contest, seeing as we’re both so _equally_ skilled at hurling tiny knives into things.”

“Well…” she says, thinking, dropping her knives back into her pack. “Ugh. This is ridiculous. It’s big enough for two, and the longer we stand here arguing over it, the less sleep we’re going to get—and we’re already getting little as it is. We’ll share it.”

He swallows. “Sh-share it?” he repeats.

“Yes,” she replies simply. “Does that bother you?”

He’s quick, as ever, to compose himself. “No! Nope. No. Not at all.” A quick run of his hand over his golden brown hair and he’s back to his ever-gallant demeanor. “Well. After you, then.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Stop trying to be a gentleman,” she says, making no moves to get in, but he only grins back slyly.

“‘Trying?’” he echoes. “Oh, rest assured, my lady, there’s no effort involved.” He pulls back the comforter with an exaggerated flourish, and it’s all she can do to suppress her own smile playing at her lips. “Yours for the taking,” he says softly.

When they’re both in and under the covers—each on the very edges of the mattress, about as far apart from one another as they could be—she blows out the candles on her bedside table, and they’re left lying in the soft warm glow of the fire, the quiet sounds of Fletcher’s snores and the wind outside.

“Goodnight, Alistair,” she says quietly, turning onto her side, hugging her knees into her.

“’Night, Emilia.”

She closes her eyes. Even with the fire going and the windows covered, the room is a bit chilly. _Better than sleeping outside_ , she reminds herself, trying, counterproductive as it may be, to will herself to sleep.

Her efforts are in vain, however, as Alistair shifts once, then again, then a third time, rustling the mattress beneath them.

 _What in_ Andraste’s _name…_

He moves again, and this time, she’s had enough.

“ _Alistair_ ,” she hisses—she’s not sure why she’s whispering when it’s only the two of them, but she does—“every time you shuffle around like that, you let the cold air under the comforter!”

The shifting stops abruptly. “Sorry,” he mumbles sheepishly, and she suddenly regrets sounding so harsh. “I thought maybe I was taking up too much of the bed and I, um, didn’t want you to not have enough room, you know, and—”

“You’re not,” she assures him.

“I’m not?”

She shakes her head—not that she thinks he can see her well in the dim firelight anyway—and pulls the comforter to her nose again. “You’re fine where you are.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight, Alistair.”

She closes her eyes again.

“Emilia?”

 _Oh, Maker_. She takes a deep breath, presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose, and opens her eyes. “Yes, Alistair?”

She can feel him roll over beside her. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and she can’t be upset, not when he sounds so _sincere_ , so _kind_ and unapologetically _himself_. “I was only wondering, are you cold? It’s, um, it’s a little cold, isn’t it?”

She turns over to face him. He’s closer now, not on the far side of the bed like he’d been before, and she wishes she could wash away the look of concern in his gentle brown eyes. She offers him a small smile. “It’s a little cold,” she agrees, “but I don’t think there’s much we can do about that.”

He grins at her. And then he turns again, leaning over the edge of the mattress, picking something up off the floor. “Well, because I was thinking,” he said, turning back toward her again, “I mean, it must be after midnight by now, which means that...well, today is, um.” He pushes the burlap sack he’d retrieved earlier toward her. “Happy Satinalia, Emilia.”

She stares at him. “What...I...Alistair,” she murmurs, so rarely speechless and yet at a loss for words at his gesture. They returned all this way for a Satinalia gift. For _her_.

“Open it.”

She pulls her hands from beneath the comforter. Suddenly, the air in the room doesn’t feel so cold anymore. “It’s light,” she says nervously when she picks up the bag. _Why are you nervous?_ she wonders, but she can’t shake the light flutter in her heart when she pulls open the drawstring, reaching in to find... _fur?_ No. Something soft, though. Something knit. A—

“A blanket?!” she exclaims, pulling the thick knitted mass of soft blue fluff out of the bag. “Alistair, where did you get—”

“It’s, um, not a blanket,” he clarifies, and even in the low firelight she sees his blush. “It’s...well, it’s _supposed_ to be a scarf. I asked Wynne to show me how and she did so I tried it myself but I think I got a little carried away so that’s why it’s all...big...and stuff, and, and...well, sorry, I hope you still…” He drifts off, looking to her for any sort of affirmation.

“You _made_ this?” she asks him in awe.

His entire face brightens, his grin meeting his eyes when he looks back at her. “I—well, yeah,” he says, almost _shyly_ , “because I remembered you saying how cold it gets at night sometimes, and I just...didn’t want you to be cold anymore, so—”

She throws her arms around him in a tight hug. _He remembers_ , is all she can think when he wraps his arms—surprised but pleased—around her in turn.

“So…you like it, then?” he asks her, and she nods into his shoulder.

“I love it,” she says truthfully, _happily_. “Thank you.”

When she finally pulls away, he’s beaming back at her. “I’m glad,” he says finally, _sincerely_ , and she grins as she unfolds the plush knitted fabric before her.

“Maker, you did go overboard,” she giggles, spreading it over the two of them.

“Oh!” he says, blush returning, “that’s okay, it’s yours, you don’t have to—”

“I _want_ to share it with you,” she says firmly.

He doesn’t object again. And when they lie back down, she pulls herself close to him, closing their previous distance to rest her head on the pillow beside him.

“Goodnight,” she whispers, unable to lose the grin on her face. “Happy Satinalia, Alistair.”

“Happy Satinalia, Em.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Satinalia18](http://satinalia18.tumblr.com) event using the prompt "presents."


End file.
